History's Inexorable March
by Sober Dogs Bore Me
Summary: “This is a catalogue, a memoir, a detective piece, taking the perforated versions of a thousand narratives and building them up into a single story.” – Harry Potter.
1. Chap 1 : Falling Glass

**Author's Note:  
**This has been revised. While no new material has been added, I've attempted to clear up the clutter of language.

* * *

**Rated:** M 

"This is a catalogue, a memoir, a detective piece, taking the perforated versions of a thousand narratives and building them up into a single story." – Harry Potter.

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**Prologue **

He shelved the book and staggered back to his armchair and closed his eyes. A moment later, they snapped back open. "_Accio_ Paper." A flurry of noise as the sheets beneath the books rose and toppled them on the floor. The bundle dropped onto his lap; they were white and fragmented with lines - muggle paper. Languidly, like in a dream, the room began to dance to his whims: the lights dimmed slightly and the air conditioning chilled at full blast. Upon the counter, a mug stirred and a jar tipped milk. A half-empty snatch of chips flew onto the side table, stewing some as it landed messily. The windows draped, the doors locked. And finally, a steaming mug gently floated into his waiting hands. He took a whiff, and a sniff, and began to write.

History's Inexorable March

It is strange watching your life through somebody else's words: like a dreamscape one is familiar with but can't accurately identify. All the signposts have been reproduced truthfully (or, being precise: reproduced to the best of their extent) but the roads connecting them are alien to me. The undercurrents of the events, the flesh and blood beneath the main body has been horribly deformed, attributing to me virtues I would never dream of possessing! But then again, I'm not wholly ignorant of this manner of marketing.

For years I've sat and permitted their dawdling. I've watched _their_ world perform it's regular motions; initially, I confess, bewildered and stupefied at their superficiality but at some point along the line I have committed the same sin: I've blinded myself to _my _reality and been swallowed up by theirs. The only defense I can offer: I have privately-practiced the greatest contempt: a snide disregard for their traditions that generated not from any induced pretense, but from the nuts and bolts that constitute me.

But death, as it looms ever closer now, is an interesting mistress.

I've wished, I've hoped, I've pleaded for people to respect me, to revere me (if they wish to revere), to look up to me for what _I _wish to be renowned for. As a child, fame glittered to me. Now, when I posses more than I can affably use, the nature of my fame chokes me.

As Dumbledore, once ardently proclaimed in lieu of my lambasting of his notions: "the public has diluted me."

I've sat back; let the years reduce me with their monotonous stupor. But I cannot excuse my own inability to articulate my lifelong principles. I do, though, have another excuse to offer: I have been fighting my whole life, often for reasons I could not discern but invariably were out to get me.

So: this is my quest. This is my holy grail: the death, the conscious deliberate murder of my public self. Before my own.

But do not misunderstand: it is not for your sake, but for mine.

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**Chapter One**  
Falling Glass 

Falling is the oldest _art_ still practiced by man. After millions of years of evolution, we still haven't forgotten how to fall! The disorientation between perception and movement that began those eons ago has been inexorably passed down! Irrefutable proof that the theory of evolution is kaput! What do you have to say to that, Dara-win!

When we climb we fall away from the earth. Perhaps that's why those self-important idiots always had their heads in the clouds.

My mother's fall was one of the oldest, the most romanticized of them all: the oft barded fall from grace. You see, my mother fell from lofty heights into a cesspit whose existence she could have barely conceived. But this pit was green, bright and beautiful and strangely enticing. And it took her a further three years to sink to the bottom, when she found herself on the top of the world!

And so, without further ado, (some things must be performed by the narrative): how the glass fell.

But before that, a little thought: I'm piecing life together from the perforated versions of others, taking the A and C and devising from the sum of my knowledge on the B. So, in effect, I'm creating history as I go along, certainly differing from public supposition. In lieu of three differing histories, two of which can be adequately proved and disproved to be accepted, while the third is the cold hard amalgam of fact from wherein the others borrow their substance; which of them is real?

Perhaps, History will tell.

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My father was a clown. To understand that one needs to question who and what a father is but that does not need to occupy center stage at the present moment. Anyways…

With my father's (As a child I'd always been among an excess of the male species; perhaps that could excuse my lack of discretion and inhibition in my later years) waiting for their cues at the backstage (where they belong) it's my mother who needs to be dissected and understood. But to understand her, you need to understand those times: before me it was her that the age defragmented and reinvented. They took the truth and shattered it, and let it loose in the wind. _All the kings men…_

Her appearance, to begin with the fundamentals: she was not tall and had short boyish hair that framed a face set perpetually in stoic lines. Her eyes of course, were her most captivating feature: they throbbed with a roaring demanding cruel intelligence. Those eyes would lead her from cellars brimming with stench of the lawless, to jail beating, and Hells-on-earth and finally into the greedy arms of my second father who could scarcely have understood what he so greatly desired, and destroyed due to this ignorance the few precious remnants of the girl who, in 74, stood before the scowling face of a teacher and told –no, ordered- him to 'bugger down your muggle prejudice'… but back then, they were merely the unexceptional features of the resident bookworm (and mudblood to boot). She was a plethora of colors: white skinned, red haired, green eyed and mud blooded: A painter's mad vision.

But why you might ask, does it matter?

When my picture perfect vision of straight lines and a beautiful face framed with fiery hair dissolved into harsh contours with plump features, and I came by the erosion those unexceptional features had undergone to be molded into that picture-perfect frame; imagine my despair! We all search for beauty, and beauty lies in truth and if the fundamentals can be so callously distorted then, then what can't?

History, they say, is written by those who are left.

On a side note: she did become the death-eyed beauty in the photographs but it took Hells-on-Earth to change her, which really underscores an old belief of mine: people are their most beautiful in despair. And after her, a long list follows: there is Julian with his useless stick, and Martha and her singing and and… of course, me. Beyond them all, despair metamorphosed me. (Modesty is something I dare not posses!)

But before all that, we need to stick with beginnings.

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In 1974 history was being made. There were attacks and deaths and fear had begun its spidery way across the hearts and throats of men, elevating names to phrases, distorting the boundaries between the definite and the indefinable, and therefore the unconquerable (the man who coined the phrase "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" was soon after kidnapped to attend an assembly, thanked for his efforts, and put out with a relatively painless death.) And unlike the official version, there is more…

While a war was freezing over the world, something seeped through the Wizarding World's defenses: In March of 74, the east wing of the Ministry of Magic was destroyed, blown up, smitherified, by rouge muggleborn groups. There was anguish and out cries, and loud proclamations of eminent muggleborns against the rogues, denouncing them to be insular and instable, dangerous people driven by… you would know by now; the classic rhetoric. But what everybody failed to mention, the dirty waters no official speech ever tread over: the attack on muggle coaches leading to fourteen deaths that were not even given an inch of obituary space in the Daily Prophet. There is, of course, more…

While a man had begun touring the world sprouting 'Give peace a chance', another manner of preaching was beginning in the Wizarding World. To steal from my mother, 'Sneaky and subtle and, of course, brilliant.' Little pieces had begun to appear in the papers, nothing definite, only suggestive; nothing one could use as proof for anti-muggle prejudice, but words and situations that stuck to one's mind. When the Harpers met their green-lighted death at their country home, the Prophet reported it with 'like the muggle aggression in…'

And an old man fought for equality at the cost of justice… and, and I'm getting my chronology wrong.

So, backing up a bit: In March of 74 the Ministry East Wing was blown up. The attack had been planned, resources garnered and executed within a week. The security systems had not yet been geared to detect chemical explosives. But even then, the perpetrators had been crafty. Entering amongst the throng of complainers, protesters and workers, not a hair had been conspicuous. But, more importantly, their minds had been resourcefully protected, churning up thoughts into wild meshes, a conflicting mix that they could then use to furnish themselves with alibis and false motives. It isn't hard to imagine: three points forming a triangle at all times until the very end, with small deadly muggle packages, hidden and perfumed with a bit of magic - a cleaning spell here, a levitation charm there - to provide it the background buzz that magic has: muggle packages decorated to be inconspicuous in magical surroundings.

From the windows, pale March light pooled in. There was a sea of noise and floating upon it, swiftly but not too fast, the three points separated, to meet in twenty minutes, far lighter without the weight of explosives on their body.

And at two, or fourteen hundred hours, the East Wing burned. Did anybody realize the indirect reference? An allusion in blood.

And while 'The Who' was widely and infamously publicized, and the how was hushed, left to public imagination (but how much could those sheep quaking in fear imagine up anyways?), the papers and the Wizarding Wireless Network began their insidious crusade against muggleborns. Across the Atlantic the AntiMuggle Bill was passed in a country in the grips of hysteria, setting back a hundred years of progress. In Britain old men barricaded this 'Unprecedented manner in which we will weed out the disruptive elements in our society.' Old men can be irritating; they hang over like flies.

But more personally, in 74 Lily Potter was – (I've grown accustomed to saying that name) – correction: Lily Evans was expelled from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - for indecent behavior.

There were politics involved, of course. We can garner that by now so no need to elucidate any further. There were politics involved and Lily Evans was fired from the best job she would ever hold in her life. But let's get to the brass tacks: Lily Evans was fired because she had sex. (That was, of course, an excuse but it's nice to pretend for a while, to look at people and delude yourself. To believe, however superficially, that they actions are based honestly on the motives they proclaim… yes, it nice. A nice manner of escapism.)

Here I begin to extemporize (formulation of the B between the A and C): twenty-two people - sixteen innocents being forced to masquerade as muggleborn terrorists, the rest guilty of rebelling against racial oppression - had been executed the pervious day, so there were parties. Celebrations. Perhaps Lily became drunk on despair? And James, seeing the object of his affection (the why need not be understood but my mother made a wiry observation: lust leeches us) pounced? There is a haze of firewhisky and a lack of information. Only that she was found in an incriminating state of undress the next day by… again, I can only suppose.

And so, she was expelled. There was an embarrassing speech upon the degradation of values which, had she cared to listen to, would have embarrassed her dearly… or perhaps, she had listened to it, and it had driven her embarrassment to far deeper, a far more secret place; so much harder to reach that later… once upon a time, she would disregard the lashing words of a woman who hadn't been kind in twenty years and had forgotten how to be polite. She would disregard the words, pay no heed to that warning and it would lead her to her first, but not her last, Hells-on-earth.

At the tender fresh (like consumable meat) age of 16, history's vines have begun to transverse upwards; intertwining through her feet and heading slowly, slowly towards upwards… the glass, _mon_ _amis_, has already begun it's downward decent: In March of 74, the inexorable march of history towards the present left its first-of-many footprints on Lily Evans.

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Imagine:

The gloomy promise of tears (as all such nights are invariably suffused with) in the air has enveloped her. She is walking but she doesn't know where. The road seems empty, like herself. One two…three…the numbers signify houses… six seven eight …twelve… the numbers munch on her steps; every house is alike and she feels she's standing at her backyard, looking into a mirror and seeing infinite reflections – no, no, No. Not _her _backyard anymore… and the rain finally pours; drums over her clothes… slides down, up and over and down again… it's cold hard sensuous touch awakens her. And suddenly, the night is dark again. She looks up: the stars come into focus. She'd never been religious but at times like these she can't help but wish… her parent's house is boarded and she has nowhere to cocoon herself. She has nowhere to go. She's adrift in her memories.

Are those tears or is that just the rain?

Another step and the Bobby House rises into view: the fog had curtained it. She smiles a fleeting smile and for that un-witnessed moment, the beauty that she would erode away into, shines.

She walks up the gray steps, watching the rain waterfall over them and down onto the street. She's tired and her trunk pulls on her arms with each step. She wonders why she just didn't store it somewhere.

Inside, it's bright and cold and lazy. A few men are longing, reclined over seats with hats tipped over their face and legs stashed on the tables. A cop moves towards her.

"Can I help you, miss?"

"Yes," she replies. "I seem to have lost my parents."

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On the fourth of February, a coach carrying soldiers and their families back to the army base from a weekend break, exploded.

_He was sitting by the window watching the green blur of the world rush past him. There was a warm comforting presence in his arms: his wife. His daughter was walking around the carriage, but repeatedly walking back to the same man. What was that kid name?... Durs… no, something… ah, a turn of the chest and a sliver of light illuminated a name tag. Vernon Dursley._

_He turned his head. His daughter. Petunia._

_Eventually, any thoughts of Petunia brought him back to his other daughter. He sighed and his wife looked up at him. There was an understanding glance and she whispered, "Thinking about Lily, dear." It was an answer and the question was lost in the clang of the carriage as they moved across hills and back into separation. But he heard her anyways._

_What do you do when novelty wears off and the glittering beautiful wonderful thing you once saw is actually just a big shiny knife. Magic: it disrupted the entire semblance of his life. He watched his daily motions and thought: they could do it so much better. He watched men dying of broken limbs: they could save him. He imagined her growing up, standing tall and proud above them, and proclaiming, "Sorry, dad. I can't help mum. It's against the rules."_

_It's against the rules. Against the rules. They had governed his life. Could he ask his daughter to abandon hers?_

_Who was his daughter, he often wondered._

_Certainly not the harsh young girl that come home every few months of the year. He's watched them change her, year after year, and he'd stood helpless, with a smile on his face. Bursting in with a few questions over the phone: how does… wow, and that… who did…_

_He kneeled back against the carriage and closed his eyes._

_This year, he wanted to get some answers._

He, of course, never found answers.

Death found him and in the outcry, that his death had not been mentioned in print to people who didn't care anyway, an east wing of a ministry was blown up. There were parties and a girl was expelled. The expelled girl reached the home of the man and wife, in a dank dark night only to find a big stick up: For Sale. The girl then fell on the grass and finally cried, with the air around her gloomy with the promise of tears.

What then, of the other girl?

When no relatives staked up a claim the police began their inquiry. They found something strange: another daughter with no mention in any local school. There were questions and Petunia gave hesitant, red-eye-rimmed answers. "She goes… up north… yes, a school… no I don't the address… not very close… name? Hogwarts." But there was no Hogwarts and there was no relief for Petunia. She knew all the answers but nobody believed her.

"Men you say? With lights shooting from sticks?... stopping bullets in midair! Dear lord, get a doctor, private. There there, Miss Evans… no need to get angry…"

But there was temporary respite in the bulky frame of a soldier whose name tag proclaimed 'Vernon.'

(Can I? Yes, of course, I've forgiven them, of course. They weren't to blame. Like my mother and me, they become too embroiled in history to know any better.)

So, while one sister was being romanced, another, who'd already left one life behind, was finding out in a police station that her other had also been shattered.

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Oh, yes: as wizards apparated into a couch, many miles away a mother entered into labor. As black-cloaked strangers raised their wands, a mediwitch hustled into a room. As muzzles smoked and bullets flew, women dived behind stiff angry shoulders… there were screams and mourns as magic enveloped a womb and failed to facilitate the processes of falling into life. As bullets stopped in midair, as men leaped with wild exclamations and tackled Cloaks that rarely felt the exertion of physical carnage, a father whispered then shouted then screamed… Push, push! Oh dear god! A squib!… As cloaks went down with blood spurting from their mouths, a Sergeant ordered… Fire At Will… and bullets rained and blood drained from pipes-down-there that never expected the barbaric onslaught they were facing… As a leg popped out a wand swiped down and halted, miraculously, the lethal paths of a dozen projectiles…

At the precise instant of Julian's Birth, a couch exploded. The date, of course, was the fourth of February. Vine-d with history and born without magic, a healthy gurgling ten chipper, Julian was doomed right from the start.

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Next Chapter: Pandora's Box 

Please Read and Review.

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	2. Chap 2 : Pandora's Box

**Author's Note:**  
This is revised and posted.

* * *

**Rated: M **

**Author's Note: **Title is subject to change.

**Summery: **  
"This is a catalogue, a memoir, a detective piece, taking the perforated versions of a thousand narratives and building them up into a single story." – Harry Potter

* * *

**Chapter Two  
**Pandora's Box

It is distinctive to note, that not once did my mother try defending herself. She could have, of course. Being gifted with an incredible academic stature, she could have easily made her plight public, garnered some soft pity, challenged the judgment of the tribunal that had sentenced her, but she did not. Instead, she stayed silent: a strange figure meandering through the hallways for her last two days, almost whimsically, with a far away look in her eyes. As her friends alternated between meaningless words and utter silence, wavering like flames in high wind, she did nothing but stare at them, and then, with a dismissive glance, smile her hollow smile, and leave. Nothing seemed to disgruntle her. Nothing disturbed the complete calm she displayed. And the whispers of senility began to stalk her steps again. "_She's gone crazy, I tell you. Over the hill." _

But what could she have done? She was merely a piece of wood, drifting helplessly on turbulent seas, trying to make sense of a distorted world.

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The room was bright and cold and lazy. A table was placed in from of Lily, a steel construct that felt icy to the skin. Above her, a slow fan wobbled, and in front, the dim light of the tube shined in her eyes. There was a strange stillness, a harsh turgidity that she couldn't attribute to the bare plastered walls. It seemed to exist in the utter absence of noise, and tired as she was, a sharp alertness kept her eyes wide open while her body groaned in protest. Lily was conscious on borrowed sleep.

Suddenly, the door opened a man entered. Lily eyed him intently as he tipped back a chair and settled down. "Miss Lily Evans," he said.

She stared at him. He was dark in general; black eyes, black hair partitioned in the middle, and a strange sort of curving of the lips that was neither a smile, nor a smirk but something that, in the dim lighting of the room, seemed much more sinister. "Miss Evans?" he repeated.

But she remained silent.

He sighed and twisted his face so that it seemed grotesque to her, "I am sorry for your loss."

Lily suddenly smiled: she was tired of empty words. "Keep your pity to yourself."

And silence. Her eyes glared into his, peering intently into his pupils. She was tensed. Her hands gripped her sides tightly, and her legs knocked together. And perhaps she was even shivering – fear or sleep or dread or cold or what? – And he noticed a tremor visibly pass through her. "Are you cold, Miss Evans," he asked with forced politeness. "Perhaps a blanket?"

"No, sir, I am not _cold," _she replied waspishly_, " _I'm simply tired, and being held against my will without proof, which of course you require before you can detain me," she paused, then continued sardonically, "Or perhaps rules are unnecessary these days? Or maybe, you can only enforce order on the innocent, since you don't seem to be doing too well with the guilty."

The cop bristled. A tinge of red colored his neck and his face contorted. With a visible stress in his voice, he tried to be sympathetic. "I can understand, Miss Evans, that you would be terribly confused right now. Finding you your parents are, well, gone and…" he sighed, "in the worst manner possible… it is not an easy thing to bear. And finding yourself with the cops, even though you've done nothing wrong, it must be terribly hard… Especially – why are you shaking your head?"

Lily shrugged insolently, "Speeches make me doze."

His eyes narrowed and he snapped, "With comments like that, you'd be _dozing_ in the can."

Startled, Lily stared at him. His mouth had dwindled into a harsh line, and his eyes were closed. "I'm sorry… Miss Evans, that was out of line." But which comment was he referring to, she wondered. _You'll be sleeping in the can_. The words, shot almost involuntarily, angrily, but, she thought, with some whiff of truth. They were accusing her; of what, she did not know. Her mouth twisted. "_Lovely." _

Again he sighed. "My name is Mikeal Horshrop, Miss Evans. Now, there are some things we need to clear up about your absence. Shall we get to it, then?"

Lily felt puzzled. From when did cops start taking personal inventory of a teenager's activities? "Why?" she said. And answered herself: _when they want to condemn. _

He stared at her and raised his eyebrow. "Perhaps the 800 deaths in recent months mi- are the reason."

"Ah… I- Okay."

"You forgot!"

"No, I'm just very tired."

He didn't believe her; she could see it in his glance. But narrowed eyes, he continued anyway. "Very well, Miss Evans," he smarted a folder on the table. "Your records," he said as he opened the file, "are exemplary, with straight A's across the board but all describe you, without fail, as an antisocial child."

"I fail to see any importance."

"Of course, you do," he muttered. Turning towards the folder, he read out. "Here: 'Brilliant, and extremely original, but lacking greatly in basic social etiquette.' Perhaps you'd care to elaborate?"

"Of course. I was smarter than them, and accused them of incompetence. And that," smirking, she added, "is exactly what I think of this little _junta_. You'd be better asking direct question…_sir." _

"Firstly, that was idiotic and secondly," He scowled, "do not be imprudent, Miss Evans. It _irritates_ me and lengths _your_ stay." Watching his hands unclench in anger, Lily smiled her amused little smirk. "I assert, don't try to manipulate me. You won't succeed. You're too… incompetent."

In anger, he almost banged the table. "Perhaps, without wasting precious time, Evans, you would like to cooperate." With a dark look upon his face he leaned forward and whispered, "It would be bad for you if you don't."

Breathing heavily, she closed her eyes. That had taken a lot out of her. "No it wouldn't…very well," She shrugged. "I enjoy my company."

Another frown, "That is your answer."

"Would you like a bigger one? Perhaps a bit more dramatic – with some tragic accident?" she inquired dryly.

"No."

"Then yes, that is my answer."

He paused and looked up at her and spoke slowly, "While there is no doubt you are an extremely bright child, Miss Evans, even smart children can get into trouble, if they are not careful."

_No, this is not about my attitude. Look at him, _Lily thought, _watching me like this. This is not irritation, this is something more. Something else entirely… _

It was his turn to feel amused at her speechlessness. Almost patronizing, he asked, "No answer, Miss Evans? Perhaps your throat is worn out from your imprudence."

"It is worn out," she swiftly countered, "but due to you're…" She stopped. Watching the irritation spring up in little displays over his body: the tense hands, the strained jaw, and the narrowed, angry eyes – she realized suddenly that there was no sense in antagonizing him… and she felt too tired to continue. Fatigue hit her in relentless waves, and she took a deep breath, leaned back languidly, a sharp contrast to his tenseness, and continued, with a whiff of politeness in her voice. "You have no grounds to threaten me on. I have committed no crime."

His answer was short and gruff, and it told her everything she needed. "No, no… not at all. Sit down."

_So, _she thought_, you are accusing me of some crime. But what? _

Reluctantly, Lily sat. She caught his puzzled gaze before he glanced down and read out from the file. "Your sister, Petunia Evans, said you go to a school up north, Hogwarts?"

"She is wrong." His eyebrows crooked. "I study in HallWings. You will find me in the class of '70."

"HallWings, Hogwarts… interesting dissimilarity, isn't it?"

"If you say so." Lily leaned back and closed her eyes. The dark was soothing and comfortable and _sleep._

Abruptly changing the subject, he asked sharply "Your parents, you were close to them?"

"We had an acceptable relation."

"Ah…Petunia got it wrong, then."

Curious, she asked, "Got what wrong?"

"She insisted that you were very close."

She paused. Then carelessly, she replied, "Yes, she perhaps had that notion."

"But how? You _did_ live in the same household, after all."

"We Did. For three months a year," she added, "She hates me anyway. It's simple as that."

"But why?" he said, fumbling with the pages in the folder.

"Because I'm better than her."

The conversation was running off in tangents. There was a myriad of conflicting thoughts in her mind, but mostly, she was zeroing in on her original thought. He was trying to accuse her of murder. Somehow, in some twisted perverted way, she felt he was trying to get her to confess. The background check, trying to find inconsistencies… and the big gapping hole that was her Hogwarts attendance… it would have already captured their attention. She dammed Petunia for not even knowing how to hide her oddity. _Mum must have reminded the Bitch a thousand times… It's not Hogwarts if anybody asks, its Hallwings. A quaint little boarding school in Scotland. _Unconsciously, she said again, "I'm better."

"You're better," he repeated quietly and massaged his temples, a headache was growing. And the silence slowly stretched. Lily leaned back again, plunging back into her thoughts. The ceiling was gray and drab.

He placed the folder aside and turned his full attention towards her. With his forehead marred with thought he spoke in far deeper, graver and slower tone. "Let me get to the brass tacks Miss Evans, I'm tired of your evasions."

"Evasions! I've been direct with you…sir."

"Exactly," he said. And now, after pushing the impeding pain back, he was the one who was more composed. "You're sitting in an interrogation room and you're answering as if you were giving a goddammed test! Either you're so stupid that you can't realize that we've caught up… or," stretching the word, "you're putting on a pretty little show."

With wild eyes, Lily opened her mouth. "There –" but he cut her off, and with a brutal tone, shot off, "Your parents funeral – why weren't you there?"

Smiling mockingly, she realized she was in no position to… assert anything verbally. Willing herself against all impulses to burst out against such onslaught, she acquiesced with the cop and respectfully answered, "Because I did not know about it."

"Why?"

She couldn't answer.

"Your sister knows nothing about the 'school' you attend, apparently, for most of the year. Rather strange, isn't it?"

"We are not close. I know nothing of her life, either."

"Yes, you are not close."

Lily felt, suddenly, encumbered by the emptiness of the room. His eyes were wild, his mouth, a triumphant orifice shooting through her life, flicking off questions whose answers she could not provide, and would not be believed if she did. "I don't associate, much," she insisted, staring intensely, directly into his eyes.

"In fact, nobody on your block knows anything about you! Rather… strange isn't it?"

"I… I'm a private person."

"Yes, very secretive indeed!"

"I din't say that."

"Miss Evans, whatever you can say doesn't matter to me the slightest. Or to anyone here." He looked at her face and added, "You are smart, you know what is happening and don't think you can talk your way out of this."

She stood up - slowly, as if the act were one of extreme exertion. Opening her eyes, she looked at him straight and hard in the face. "Mr. what is you name again…?"

He swallowed. "Mikeal. Mikeal Horshrop."

"Mr. Mikeal, I do not know why you are accusing me of murder, but I-"

"You know _exactly_ why I'm accusing you. Sit down, Evans. I don't go for theatrics in _my _station."

She sat down and closed her eyes. This… this was too much… the strain was enormous.

"Miss Petunia Evans gave a lot of interesting information… the hoplosh part is discarded as stress related but the men in black cloaks…" he leaned forward, "Tell me, Lily, what do you know about them?"

Her name sounded unusual coming from his stern voice. "Should I be prior to them?"

A smile flitted across his face briefly, "A black silken Cloak was found. Miraculously untouched by the blast. Do you… ah! You finally understand what I'm talking about!"

Her eyes had opened wide. Her trunk! Her goddammed Trunk! _Oh, God! _Fear twisted and turned her insides, and his scowl grew more prominent as he watched her squirming.

"That same cloak has been found at the scenes of many recent terrorist strikes… No one produces those cloaks. Hell, we don't even know how they're made." He leaned back and pressed his fingers to his head. With a scowl, he continued, "the same cloak we found in your trunk. Such an interesting coincidence, is it not?"

"I bought it from a …" she said, her voice wavering. "A market in London. An interesting souvenir."

And it seemed he'd smiled in disgust. "No more witty comments? Didn't I tell you they'd land you in the can."

"It was a market," she feebly asserted. She tried to pull herself together, but she couldn't. She was exhausted, hungry, and, and… she'd suddenly realized, as he hammered away, chipping off bit by bit, the swollen pieces of her corroded armor… she realized that she was alone in the world. " Elm street. It's…"

He slashed her voice off viciously, "And we are supposed to believe that, aren't we? Indeed."

"The truth is not subject to belief. It exists-"

With a violent wave of his hand, he slapped the table and sent the edge crashed with her ribs, and her sprawling back.

"Don't give me any bullshit, Evans," he growled. "I've been patient with you but…"

"I bought it at a store, you bastard," she screamed. And screamed. And screamed… first the deaths, the rape, the expulsion, humiliation and deaths again, and hate, and boarded houses and rain falling like tears… the petty words, swirling like poisonous mist… the years she had wasted with the vain hope of eventual greatness… and the last two nights she had spent, in a fit of uneasy wakefulness, cutting herself painfully off from one reality only to discover her only refuge had been broken, too… all the fits she suppressed came tumbling out in one loud, passionate wail and push…

It went on and on… _YouBastards… _and then, abruptly, stopped. Mikeal had gone careening back at her scream, his eyes shut, his face twisted into pain. Slowly, he composed himself.

And for a moment, their harsh uneven breathes filled the room.

He recovered first. After all, what was a bit of pain against the feebleness of exhaustion?

With a few steps almost echoing in the silence of the cage, he loomed over her. His face showed no pity, only the bare vestiges of pain and the overwhelming contortion of anger. "We know what you are, Miss Evans. A cult, a rebel group, something; anything. On fourth, fourteen people died. In January, twenty six did. Let's not go back, shall we." Automatically, he offered her a hand. "In all cases, black cloaks were found. Like Your black cloak." She refused and stood up, wincing as pain and fatigue surfaced. "We can convict you with anything, Miss Evans. Anything at all. No one will provide _you _with mercy. Understand that, and you'll know how to act."

* * *

We aren't there yet, but we are close. Yes, very very close! Soon, the glass will tip over and the water'll begin its downward decent! But nothing defies gravity and it can only fall at nine point nine eight meters per second. And it has such a long, long way to go…

Confess, they said in bare locked rooms. Confess. _The night wore on outside… _

Cut off ties. They can't help you. We can. Why protect them, kid. _A tinge of brightness, like a boil ready to bust, appeared in the distant horizon… _

You're tired, kid. We see that. So, tell us now and save yourself- _The bleeding sun began its weary climb… _

And Lily Screamed… "I'll Tell! I'll Tell!"

And she told.

It was an enticing tale, spun from truth and untruths so beautifully that, as it rolled over her tongue in desperate, hurried snatches, nobody disbelieved. There was a mammoth organization she spoke, with its arms spread like an octopus's over Britain. There were codes and meeting places. And money and, and… She merged the real, with the fantasy. Her frantic mind intertwined the Wizarding World with renegade notions, making a coagulated mix that seemed real and unreal enough to be true.

She diminished herself, made herself out to be insignificant.

She was difficult to believe and impossible to disbelieve.

----------------------------------------

It's strange what all can happen in one night. But it's perpetual night for Lily, now, interminable darkness. Look at her, knees hunched back against her body, minimized and leaning against the bench. Her eyes cast downwards, her arms enfolding the legs and her face hidden by the hollows of her posture. Is she whimpering? Crying? In pain? Hurt? Perhaps, perhaps… merely sleeping… it doesn't do to be cynical all the time, but as I've said before, I'm only cynical when I can be, and cynical when I must!... So: what if time and sleep hadn't been sufficient to break her? Perhaps, she had stood the onslaught of words and hunger and drowsiness… and they had been forced to resort to harsher measures. A rock hard slap on the knee. Or a cut on the cheek, a punch on the… and maybe, maybe even more… time would come when James would remark to Sirius about the scars on her body, old fading scars along her spine and from Sirius I would snatch and reconstruct… it's all another part of the puzzle of the past… another piece of the moon.

And as Mikeal prepared to leave, he caught her eye one last time. "Kid," He said, but then his head throbbed painfully again -the night had been tiring- and his voice reduced to a mutter, "Pray we find something, kid."

So, while she consoled her injuries upon a bench, surrounded by men and by the slivers of sunlight entering through a foggy dawn, cops fanned out from the bobby house; there were phone calls and urgent meetings. Like an artery divides to provide sustenance to the body, those men divided the information, ordering searches in accordance to her confession.

And upon the bench it dawned, again: she was alone in the world.

But this time, Lily _smiled. _

* * *

In a pub in London, Martha sang. It was a beautiful voice and it flowed like velvet over skin. Higher and higher it went; climbing, scaling, unknown peaks. And people stared, fascinated, not only by the words but also the loud obnoxious body, tented by the wall with a gapping orifice out of which music was born. The words seemed repellent in their frame.

It traveled through every register, along with her flabby body swinging obnoxiously to the tune.

Then, the music stopped. And in just a moment, the odor of sex and booze and decadence had overfilled senses and people came abruptly down to earth, and realized exactly where they were. And they gazed in awe and clapped. And clapped…

Martha pocketed her wand and swallowed the applause. She tried to smile, and found she was unable to do so. He eyes roved around the room. The pub was small, dingy, and a bit dirty perhaps, but no one cared. It didn't matter. There were no families to be catered to, here. Here, there was only life to felt: life in its raw essentials, without the illusions of order to skew it into carpets and chandeliers and aloof farces. As she stopped, there was applause, and then a wand waved and music began to issue from the Wireless Network. And people began to dance again.

There were couples and screams and groans. There were drinks drowned and splashed. Gallons scattered and collected from tabletops. And laughter. Of a thousand and one shades.

Martha's eyes roved and she tried to smile. Eventually, she found his gaze. His hand cradled a glass. His hair was askew, falling all over his face and upon his mouth curved a hint of derision.

And outside, cops were parking.

----------------------------------------

And outside, cops were leaving.

Here, we reach the chasm. Imagine: Mikeal and his partner, walking back, angry and empty handed. As expected. The locations Evans had blabbed, had turned been nothing more than old warehouses and getups for old folks. The confession they had so painfully extracted had been useless, utter fabrication. All around them, surrounded by the curious eyes of the city, the cops are dispersing. There were signals and whistles. And shouts, "Oyi, you there, what da hell do you think you're doing?"

Above them, the city is bright without fog.

Walking towards their car, they are arguing. Mikeal's partner, Adrian is on full blast, swaggering his words around like his walk - artificial and a pretense. Be kind, he says. Just a stupid girl. Can't take anger out… can't hold responsible - moralistic bullshit. Preached by the untouched to those in despair. They killed my family, Adrian, Mikeal snaps. My family is dead. Adrian just replies: so is hers.

_So is hers? _

_So was hers! _

They reach a pub and Adrian stops. Here, he gestures. 'Need a drink?' And though, Mikeal is in deep thought he pauses his steps for a moment, then moves on and Adrian, sighing, follows. _So is hers_. The words revolve in his mind. With everything crowding around his head, all the pressures he was facing, all the shit he was hearing daily, he had jumped at the remote chance of a connection, forgetting, although he'd played feeble lip service to it, that her parents were dead. She was alone, just like him. She was a kid, unlike him. And what he'd done to her… _Poor Kid, _he thinks and he feels like laughing. He was such a monster, and it sickened him. But, but the greats were always monsters.

And then suddenly, as he's staring at the wall thinking about Evans, a man walks out of the brickwork.

* * *

It's just a matter of time; the quirky hand of fate can grant and snatch precious seconds with careless disdain. We're all atoms, randomly colliding. Some of us lose our motion; some gain it. And some are fused and not only lose energy but a part of themselves. Nash came up and gave the world the idea of game theory. He devised a rational mathematical explanation for human behavior in a select field of observations. He reduced the scope of human sentience to a few arbitrary symbols on a paper. A combination of operators.

Shakespeare was wrong, he said. All the world's not a stage.

We're just poker balls on a perverted poll table ready to fly with the whim of the invisible fist.

------------------------------------

It was just a matter of time.

If Mikeal hadn't seen that furtive look, the pleading glance Lily had uttered to the world outside through a pathetic opening in the wall, a split second that he alone had captured and then tried to expel - with a threat: pray we find something – he would not have found her growing over him, like cancer, over the years. If he hadn't, by mistake of course, caught sight of _that_ face, he would never have been in thought, staring at a wall, and he could never have seen a man emerge from the brickwork. If Martha, drunk on whiskey and music to high heavens inside the bar, hadn't tried to kiss a man slipping his drink next to her, nobody would have stormed out from the brickwork. It's just a matter of seconds, an illicit synchronization of the clocks with the harsh invisible fist of fate.

But it happened. The realm of possibility shattered into threads of fact. And Mikeal, startled at first but recovering quickly, rushed forward and grabbed the man by the throat. "Where did you come from?" He growled and Adrian caught up, bewildered with bitter tendrils of possibility uncoiling in his mind. _He's been under so much strain every since…did he? No… he just needs a vacation…? _The streets weren't as empty as before and people stared and the man cried out but the grip tightened. "Where'd you come from?" The man's hand crept downwards and somebody who'd probably overheard, shouted, indignation spilling like sour milk into his voice, "what did the poor bastard do, asshole." And the hand inched down and down but Adrian saw, as a sliver of sunlight struck a diamond ring on a fugitive finger and reflected into his eyes, and reacted. A violent snap and shove and the man was flattened against the wall. "Where. Did you come from?" The man was scared, he perspired and a voice growled into his ear and a barrel nudged his spine. "Where?" The voice asked.

And the man acquiesced.

All eyes on the street stared. The remaining cops were converging around the scene. The man walked slowly with a barrel pressed to his spine. Adrian whispered, "What the hell are you doing!" Mikeal didn't reply.

They stopped at the space between two shops, a thick line running up, red brickwork on one side, bluish plaster on the other. The man lifted a trembling hand. It found an invisible grip but an idea dawned, and his fingers slipped past. "See, nothing!" he shouted, intent on arousing the interest of everyone.

Mikeal kicked him on the back of his knee. He is in pain again, and he can't help being impatient.

The man goarned and and almost fell. "No? Nothing?..." Mikeal kicked him again. "Well?"

The incredulous gasp of the onlookers almost swallowed the cry of pain.

"Stand back guys, or I'd swear I shoot him. And you, open it. Ofcourse there is, I saw him come –yes, dammit, I know what I saw. Adrian! You're name? – no, doesn't matter. Open…no? No? You like the gun there? Something'll be coming out the other side if…gooddd…"

…They watch, stupefied, as the man begins to _sink_ into the building. Almost instinctively, as one would try and save a drowning man, Adrian's hand shoots out and grabbed the man, halting his _sinking…_and Adrian gasped, wide eyed, as a door grew in the place where the man was half immersed in the wall, and pushing it's two neighbors jerkily away, as if it were in a particular rush, a building comes into view.

And Adrian stared.

* * *

The lighting is pale dark and sensual. The song, slow. Languorous. The bright, harsh, _raw _sunlight _stops_ at the doorway, and creates a thin shimmering film beyond which the darkness danced untouched. Through this screen, Mikeal can see silhouettes twisting, coming together, striping apart, and twisting again… silhouette, no, people – but he can't get the strange illusion out of his head- dancing their dances. Shakily, he punches through the layer and some of his anxiety disperses. And inside, even the air currents feel different; cooler, somehow. Something tingles his skin.

Bracing himself, he rushes through the barrier. "Freeze." A few cops remain outside, both petrified and enthralled by the phenomenon, but most venture inside, un-holstering their guns, and spreading in the prescribed formation.

"Stop standing like idiots and go up, against the walls."

For a moment, there is silence as people process what had happened. Then like a rising murmur…

There are shouts and screams, and disdain, "Pathetic little toys," a man yells and calls his wand with a flick of the wrist and –BANG- and blood and a cry. "I'm serious, kids, against the walls," and a teenager with his proverbial legs cut off from beneath him, stares at his bloodied stump, touching, almost curiously, the black piece of metal engorged in his hand, before pain catches up to a brain trying to flee from reality, and then, a groan, a whimper, and choking sobs…

Guns point at anyone trying with anything in they fingers, and they, gaze flickering to the sobbing boy, open their eyes and palms wide, and wands drop, and clatter clatter clatter… the cops spreading, guns pointing, grouping the people and –Bang- and people flinch and press they hands against their ears… and empty eyes collapse with a thud onto the floor next to Martha, and Martha twists, looks into the dead man's mind, and shrieks and then shouts, incoherent in fear, "please_please_please." And as if a dam had been burst, suddenly there is hysteria, and the cops outside, observing the absence of danger, saunter in, shouting with loud, hollow commandeering voices, "Quiieeet!" And as one is dragging the Man-Who-Revealed through the barrier, the light sudden erupts, violently, into a blinding glare…

Nobody really knew what happened. The light lit and blinded everyone, but since the cops were facing the entrance, they remained relatively undamaged. So did a few wizards. Dazed, and seeing revolving echoes of the scene, somehow the wizards coordinated their wands into their hands and swung them in wild motions, muttering, muttering, curse after curse…

And a cop went tumbling into the ground, his gun, wrenched by some invisible force beyond his grasp.

At the moment, beyond any of their grasps.

And frightened completely, by the unnatural connotations, like a pair of beasts unable to cope, the cops lose control. Entirely.

--------------------------------------

Bloodshed, bloodbath, blood.

Virtue doesn't matter anymore; morals are redundant. Both parties are facing an alien force. And both are scared, and both are armed. And guns smoke, and wands shoot… there are holes through which guts pour out and people, squashed, pressed until they burst against the ceilings. Some of the smarter ones shoot from outside, strafing and firing… and everything that moves is targeted… war in miniature: a very real, very dirty caricature, where every person reaction is magnified because it can be seen by everyone else, and every scream is heard, every splatter of blood is…

It won't last for long. People have been informed. Mediating forces are on their way.

It _didn't _last for long. But long enough.

Long enough, at least, to provide Lily her escape.

And Mikeal, smart, accurate, unmerciful, with a harsh pounding in his head reminiscent of his conversation with Lily suddenly erupts into screams and drops to the sidewalk.

And a few curious eyes stare, hysterical in their own manner, from a safe comfortable distance.

* * *

**Author's Note**s: Yes, you'd probably be wondering how the hell could a muggle notice and soon, I'd provide the explanation.

Next Chapter: PianoMan.

If you did understand the subtle interconnection between the two main scenes, (I hope, at least, that they were subtle, but not so much that only I could see 'em) wait for one more chapter to draw you're conclusions.

Please Read and Review.

* * *


	3. Chap 3 : PianoMan & Notice

**Important Note:**  
Chapter One and Two have been revised and posted.

Chapter One: Uncluttered. And added to, a bit.

Chapter Two: Posted yesterday. Much bigger than the original one. Greatly revised and expanded.

Chapter Three: Felt like posting a bit of it, to justify this **Important Note**. So, a small piece, is probably subject to change, but will give you a bit of idea what this chapter will be about.

* * *

**Rated: M **

**Author's Note: **Title is subject to change.

**Summery: **  
"This is a catalogue, a memoir, a detective piece, taking the perforated versions of a thousand narratives and building them up into a single story." – Harry Potter

**Chapter Synopsis:  
**A few OC's, Lily manipulates, and Ministry is infiltrated.

* * *

**Chapter Three (**Teaser**)  
**PianoMan

Through the door came the buzz of the siren, and a stern lord voice, announcing, "All Units assemble…"

Lily stared at the cop. He had been watching her curiously, but now his seemed riveted to the broadcast. "…a mass shootout…" Did he have a gun? Perhaps, perhaps, but it didn't really matter if he couldn't use it.

_Any second now. _

The room was small, with strange circular window and a large comfortable bench hunched against the wall. Lily took a deep breath. Maybe there were other ways, but she had neither the time nor the inclination to devise them. Small doubts had been reciprocating in her mind, especially over her treatment of Mikeal, but she had banished them. This was neither the place nor the time. She was tired, and whatever she had devised, she would stick to it.

She heard the bang of the door against the wall. Then, a frantic voice, spoke swiftly and she could only hear snatches. "Oyi, Blake…Mass… killing…something… half units… black cloaks."

And her eyes snapped open. "Did you say 'Black Cloaks'?"

The informer turned a disgusted look towards her. "This bitch," he said, "sent us to an ambush. Captain says lock her up."

And Lily felt anxiety stir in her abdomen. Her jailer, 'Blake' muttered his affirmatives and the conversation continued, but Lily didn't attempt to overhear. She had not expected this. Hell, she hadn't planned for Mikeal going out to check her confession himself: the pain, she'd hoped, would be sufficient to keep him confined to the station. But he had gone and all the subtle directives she had attempted to force upon him during their conversation, had been rendered useless. _All that energy wasted… _

But then came the announcements, the slow emptying of the bobby house as people phoned and registered suspected, and suspicious parcels and peoples and places. Times were bad, Lily knew. There had been a lot of deaths, and the atmosphere was dank with paranoia. And the people who drank in this stench would save her: by phoning and complaining.

And slowly, as the minutes ticked by, the bobby house petered out.

She was a secret, she knew. They couldn't keep her, here. Not without evidence, which they didn't posses. She was a secret that only five people knew, and only two of them remained in the bobby house. And they stood in front of her, talking. It was a simple, simple plan.

And so she gathered her thoughts around her. It was easier to imagine it like a wave: visuals always facilitated the process of accumulation. She gathered her thoughts around her like a wave: a tall, loud, fierce wave. Her jumbled thoughts were swept _up_ by the proverbial tide, higher and higher, the coherent notions crashing against each other and shattering down, into so many slivers, into so many pieces of nothingness. It rose, higher, higher, higher…

And Blake and the informer, watched as her body trembled.

There were no thoughts, only a bundled, a confined wave straining…

She opened her eyes to two gazes staring curiously down at her. It was hard to think, or imagine. The notions were destroyed and enveloped by the wave before they could be adequately processed.

_Them, _she thought, _them. _

And as the wave swallowed and expanded further, she did what she had read about so many times. She let go. She acquiesced with the pressure.

And roaring and screaming, her consciousness expanded and struck the two men down. For the moment, they couldn't believe what had happened, and looked perplexed. But only the crest of the wave had crashed, the rest was…

The rest exploded against their mind. And they slumped to the ground, uncon-… no, she didn't check. She didn't want to know. She didn't dare to.

And Lily stumbled back onto the bench, her body sagging under fatigue and her eyes streaming with tears. It was time to leave, _somehow. _

* * *


End file.
